“It’s no prettier a picture painted your way.”
“No prettier,” Eve agreed. “But it’s the right picture. Kid’s fourteen. He’s angry, he’s confused, he’s ashamed. He goes home, sneaks back in. But he’s busted. He smells of the alcohol and the sex, and the father loses his temper. Grabs him by the wrist, slaps him. Tears, shouts, recriminations. Probably some name-calling the father regretted after. Take him to the health center, order him to say the minor injuries were a result of the sexual assault. He’s caused the family enough trouble, damn it, and he’s going to do what he’s told.”
“And in the end,” Roarke continued, “it fell apart. Fitzhugh walked, b
ecause among other things, the others were too busy protecting their image.”
“Yeah, which makes me feel better about going over to their place tomorrow and questioning the family. They won’t be the only ones. Let’s find the others.”
“I’ve set up the search already, adding in George’s file.” He smiled at her, moved in, nudging her knees apart so he could fit his body between them. “It’ll mark blocked sealeds, and I’ve input the series of commands to bypass the block, open the seal.”
“Busy fingers.”
“And they’ve life in them yet.” He slid them under her shirt. “It’ll take a bit of time to finish tasking. Just, I’d say, enough time.”
“I’m on duty.”
“Me, too.” He eased in and found, with his mouth, the spot just under her jawline he liked best. “Why don’t you give me an order, Lieutenant?” His fingers skimmed over her breasts, her sides, and around her back to dance along her spine.
The thrill rushed after them. She knew what he was doing—washing away the shadows of the picture they’d just painted. Bringing up the strong, clear colors of their own.
“Cut that out.” She angled her head so his lips could trail up. “In a minute.”
“That’s pushing even my speed and agility, but we’ll start with a minute.” He caught her earlobe between his teeth. “And see how it goes.”
Her brain was starting to fog up, her body starting to rev. “God, you’re good at this.”
“Is that going into my official file as a . . .” His mouth found hers, sank in. “. . . expert consultant, civilian?”
“I’ll keep it in my personal records.” Her breath caught. How the hell had he gotten her shirt off so fast? “This is . . . we can’t do this on a command console.”
“I think we could.” He’d already unhooked her trousers. “But it does lack a little something. Hitch on,” he said, and gave her hips a boost until her legs were wrapped around his waist.
“Minute’s gotta be up,” she whispered, but couldn’t resist nibbling at his throat.
“Let’s see if we can make time stop.”
He opened a wall panel. A bed slid out. When he tumbled her to the mattress, she kept her legs and arms hooked around him and used the momentum to roll on top of him.
“It’s going to be fast,” she warned him.
“I can live with that.”
She tore open his shirt, ran her hands in one hard sweep over his chest, then lowered to scrape her teeth over flesh.
The taste of him was already a part of her, lived inside her. Still she always wanted more. And took more, crushing her mouth to his until the heat drenched her.
She could feel it pump from him, from her as mouths and hands turned greedy. It fueled her, pulsing through her system like a slap of adrenaline.
When he flipped her to drag at her trousers, she dragged at his. Her heart hammered under his restless mouth. His muscles tensed under her impatient hands.
They tugged, pulled, yanked and ripped so that she was naked and laughing when she rolled again to straddle him. Laughter became a purr of pleasure as she took him inside her.
She clenched around him and drove him mad with need. Rearing up, he clamped his mouth on her breast, sucking her in until it felt as though he could feed on her heartbeat. The flavor, the heat, the scent of mate. She arched, letting him fill her.
Then began to move.
She drove him back, braced her hands on either side of his head and used her hips to set a furious pace.